Czur scanner (i.e. scan a full book in about 5 minutes) - General

[hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crhnYFKpWdI[/hd] So the Czur scanner is basically the fastest/cheapest scanner ($199 USD for early birds) to be presented so far and is made by a team of Chinese who only speak basic English so well* and was funded by indiegogo ([url]https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/czur-scanner-build-your-own-digital-library[/url]). It allows someone with basic computer knowledge to scan through an entire 2-300 page book in about 5 minutes while automatically cropping pages, removing fingers (i.e. fingers holding pages) as well as correcting page distortion. It has some backing from interesting people too. [quote]"The now-$199 high-speed Czur scanner from China has drawn a thumbs-up from Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, at least based on what the promo says. “Very cheap!” he tells me an an e-mail. “We would love to see more people scanning, and this might help.”[/quote] (source: [url]http://www.teleread.com/199-czur-scanner-gets-thumbs-up-from-internet-archives-brewster-kahkle/[/url]) More articles: [url]http://www.teleread.com/scan-a-book-in-five-minutes-199-smart-scanner-with-foot-pedal-and-wifi-support/[/url] [url]http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/czur-tek-worlds-fastest-scanner[/url] So a few discussion points: - Do projects like these that are homegrown within China pose a threat to what we have typically seen as successful projects (i.e. overpriced products from large companies). The marketing quality is definitely of a very different quality to what else is out there, but the product itself is interesting. - Does this project in particular pose a threat to piracy levels of books? FWIW, I bought one last year and am waiting on it to be shipped to me. Pretty excited to get my hands on it. *=[sp] they scan a page that has two mentions of the word nigger in the above video[/sp]

That's pretty badass. Also, the two pages are from [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Evening_Sun]That Evening Sun[/url] by William Faulkner. A mention of the word "nigger" isn't a big deal in literature like that.

[QUOTE=Robman8908;49918423]That's pretty badass. Also, the two pages are from [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Evening_Sun]That Evening Sun[/url] by William Faulkner. A mention of the word "nigger" isn't a big deal in literature like that.[/QUOTE] the mention of any word should not be a big deal in any literature, ever, period

[QUOTE=Egevened;49918629]the mention of any word should not be a big deal in any literature, ever, period[/QUOTE] Its just a peculiar choice for a marketing/example video for some obscure Chinese-made scanner. Especially since there is some decent possibility they have no idea what it means.

icarusfoundyou, wasn't that name in the list of FP censored words or something? when did they change that

[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;49918981]Its just a peculiar choice for a marketing/example video for some obscure Chinese-made scanner. Especially since there is some decent possibility they have no idea what it means.[/QUOTE] Maybe the dude was just reading Faulkner, the author's pretty famous enough for it not to be out of place, the situation would be the same if they demo'd some other book like Huckleberry Finn. Just a funny coincidence is all.

That's awesome and I want one.

oh yeah one thing they don't show in the sample video above is that there is also a foot pedal attachment, so you can use both hands to handle the book and just your foot to scan (so you can basically do shit quicker) EDIT: and it also has wifi so you don't have to use it connected via USB. Also has HDMI out if you want to use it as a kind of overhead projector for your books. As well as an LCD screen on the top so you can see what you're scanning without a computer.

I'm imagining that scene in The Incredibles where he's drying like twenty books with a hair dryer, and this thing scanning them all in at once :v:

Are there no actual examples of pages scanned with it yet, apart from in that video? I'd love one of these. I've always thought I'd love to have a job digitizing textbooks that don't have good digital versions. Adding nice OCR and bookmarks is actually quite fun imo and this would basically be a gamechanger.

as cool as that is, i recently saw a demonstration of something similar from HP that i could go buy right now. I guess what they have going for them is the software that automatically aligns it and crops it. Still its a cool device and doesn't look complicated at all to use, though they might want to include something to stitch all those pages together into a PDF easier

[QUOTE=WhyNott;49919016]icarusfoundyou, wasn't that name in the list of FP censored words or something? when did they change that[/QUOTE] quite a while ago iirc. It used to be an autoban

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;49920142]Are there no actual examples of pages scanned with it yet, apart from in that video? I'd love one of these. I've always thought I'd love to have a job digitizing textbooks that don't have good digital versions. Adding nice OCR and bookmarks is actually quite fun imo and this would basically be a gamechanger.[/QUOTE] I'm sure there will be examples up within 1-3 weeks as they will start shipping today/tomorrow. I personally plan on scanning a book I have that costs about $600 USD and is extremely rare/hard to find and has had huge political implications in a fairly large region over the past few decades and I plan on sending it as far and wide as I can (basically this book is the very first example of a particular name change push that has affected world maps for a while). Only because I paid for the book have I been able to access its content, but with a device like this it is possible to level the playing footage. The book doesn't even have a scanned copy on Google Books, so the value of it will probably plummet as a result, but value of the book be damned it is probably of interest to someone out there. I also have other books that are rare/hard to find that I plan on scanning. By increasing the amount of readily searchable works out there, we can only improve the standard of human knowledge on a global scale and rather than having a few hundred million people bringing ideas to the table we can bring 2-3 billion people. Especially interesting about this scanner is it promises OCR on 35 languages. It may not be successful, it may be a small stepping stone, but it is at least an idea that won't be forgotten. The amount of knowledge/literature that is tucked away in people's basements is probably astounding and I hope a device like this can enable a more open information culture. I won't lie and say the process of ordering this scanner has been straightforward, it has been delayed a few times (like most indiegogo/kickstarter projects) but I'm optimistic to how things will turn out. On top of the whole concept of 'open knowledge' I will be extremely impressed if this particular project fairs well because it originated in China and I haven't seen anything quite as daring as it.

I wonder if it could do graphic novels or comics.

[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;49920365]I wonder if it could do graphic novels or comics.[/QUOTE] it can do contracts: [hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw83UG_1mgA[/hd] In all seriousness, it can do anything including 3dish objects. Although from what I've read a flatbed scanner would provide the best results in terms of color accuracy and beyond that a drum scanner would provide even better results. In terms of I want to read xyz comic on my computer/phone 99% of the population wouldn't actually give a shit. I think its kinda like 320kbps MP3 vs FLAC. I think for most people this version of scanning would be fine.

[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;49920398]In all seriousness, it can do anything including 3dish objects. Although from what I've read a flatbed scanner would provide the best results in terms of color accuracy and beyond that a drum scanner would provide even better results. In terms of I want to read xyz comic on my computer/phone 99% of the population wouldn't actually give a shit.[/QUOTE] Most book scanning is done for Archival, where just as long as it's legible, it's good enough. Also, as a consequence of the scanning being done for archival, you can't damage or take out pages to scan, meaning drum scanners are out, and they need to be done at many pages / hour, taking both flatbeds and drum out. Anyway, [url]https://archive.org[/url] is pretty great, they're one of the few places (Along with Archive Team) trying to preserve culture in the digital age.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;49920566]Most book scanning is done for Archival, where just as long as it's legible, it's good enough. Also, as a consequence of the scanning being done for archival, you can't damage or take out pages to scan, meaning drum scanners are out, and they need to be done at many pages / hour, taking both flatbeds and drum out. Anyway, [url]https://archive.org[/url] is pretty great, they're one of the few places (Along with Archive Team) trying to preserve culture in the digital age.[/QUOTE] Thanks for your response. I fully agree with your technical summarization and I hope that something like this device provides what humanity is looking for. Personally speaking, in my years on the internet I've learned to fully appreciate what projects are available. I've donated to archive.org (far preceeding this post) as well as wikileaks as well as numerous other projects (such as textfiles). Where I can't donate financially I've tried to provide support in other means. I really, optimistically hope that we can improve the standard of scanned/OCR'd documents towards the internet and I look forward to the advantages said technology can provide towards projects like [url]http://ascii.textfiles.com/[/url]

i wonder if this could be used in law to find and help lawyers work through thousands of old laws and shit

Here is an article that I hadn't noticed but should've been included in the original post: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/10/20/could-a-super-fast-scanner-the-size-and-shape-of-a-desk-lamp-be-the-next-must-have-digital-gadget/[/url] [quote]Starting at 7am to run the 2300 pricing point from the previous evening to get the late close prices for our Irish funds and the closing prices for the Japanese and Chinese markets which shut at 6am our time, before the frenzy of live pricing points at 0830, 1000, 1100, 1200 and 1300, the opening prices of the US markets at 2pm, by 4pm we had compared the prices of some 10,000 investment funds, stocks, exchange traded funds, special purpose vehicles, bonds, treasuries and derivatives, and we were pretty drained. And then it was time to scan the files; every pricing pack was printed, distributed around the team, put back together again and kept on the team leader’s desk, and each and every sheet had to be scanned so it could be stored electronically (as well as physically, at some expense). (...) In short, it may not be the new iPhone, but it is undeniably a well-engineered and well put together product that CzurTek say has been tested hundreds of times to ensure it works every time, straight out of the box. Plus it’s cheap enough that you could surprise your team and have one on every desk, although you might want to make it clear you are not making a point about what you believe their true value to your company to be![/quote]